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Wavelength Audio, ltd

If you are using the new High Speed (HS) Cosecant or Crimson, you will need to load the device drivers before proceeding to software installation.

It is best to use computers with Windows XP or newer when using any Asynchronous USB Device. Vista or Windows 7/ would be a best choice for any Asynchronous USB DAC.

When you plug in any of the USB DAC’s it will say that you are installing new hardware. It will ask you if you want to go to the internet for drivers or search locally. Search locally as all the available drivers for any of these DAC’s should be already installed in your operating system.

You may want to set the Sounds panel to no theme so that computer sounds will not go through your stereo system. If you are using a 24 bit DAC you can also set the default output sampling rate. Select the Cosecant or your dac and then do Configure and the Speaker Properties window will come up. Under Enhancements make sure all the enhancements are disabled. You can then goto the Advanced pane and select your output sampling rate for the system.

I suggest that if you are using Windows Media Player or iTunes on a PC that you upgrade to Vista. In XP and earlier operating systems (OS) the problem with these and other applications is the KMIXER. This part of the OS will alter the bits of songs and it will not sound as good.

If you are going to use iTunes on the PC and using Vista/7 then make sure to set the output stream to WASAPI. This is done by loading QuickTime (used for output stream of iTunes) and going to the preferences and setting Windows Audio Session.

If you are using XP or after the above then goto the Macintosh Setup page for information on the rest of the setup parameters for iTunes.

There are many good PC software choices. Many like Foobar, WinampEAC, and we especially like J River Media Center. We feel the best all around program is J River so we will concentrate on getting that setup here.

We have had better and easier results with J River when used with Vista/7/8 and Direct Sound. But if you are using XP (SP2 or SP3 best) then you will have to bypass the KMIXER by use of an ASIO driver:

ASIO4ALL this free driver is easy to use and configure.ASIO2KS this free driver is also very easy to useASIO USB Audio is 49 Euro’s and is suppose to be very good, but setup is a little weak.

Some people think that better than ASIO is to un-map the USB DAC device from the KMIXER. This is done as follows:

Check both Use audio features of this device and Do not map through this device.==> [ Apply ] <==

That will map through the KMIXER without using ASIO.

J River Media Center Setup Here

Tools->Options->Encoding:

Select as the Encoder Uncompressed Wave as displayed above.

Tools->Options->CD & DVD:

To assure an error free rip of each track make sure you set the Copy Mode to Secure. This is very important or the tracks will be flawed and not sound very good. You can also set the speed to Max or something lower to make sure the tracks are correctly ripped.

Tools->Options->Playback:

If you are using Vista/7/8 is best option to use WASAPI/Exclusive Mode. If you are using XP or earlier operating system then ASIO is your best bet.

In J River they offer allot of DSP stuff which is not good for high end sound. Make sure the eq, effects, volume leveling and Temp & Pitch settings are off. You can set the output prefernces here in this window.

Only use ASIO4ALL if you are running XP

Here we show the settings for ASIO4ALL with medium buffering. In the ASIO4ALL Off-Line Settings program you can fool with these options until you get the best sound.

Hardware Buffering on some machines does not work. Also make sure you have the Resample setting correctly set.

J River ASIO Setup Page

Now you are ready to play and rip music. You can glance over the literature for setting up remotes and hand helds.Remote ControlsThere are many suggested remotes and handheld for J River and it’s best too look over the suggestions they have in their setup guide.

If you want more robust solution for iTunes I suggest getting a Bluetooth Enabled device and the Salling Software Clicker. This gives you complete control to do just about anything with your computer. Keyspan also offers the TuneView remote that enables full control of your iTunes. With iTunes 7.7 and later both the iPhone and the iTouch remote access were introduced by Apple.

You can also control your PC via another computer using VNC. There are many ways to do this and it can be a bit complicated. A simple search of the internet or contact us and we can help you set this up.